I agree with the death penalty in principle. In practice, I would only agree with it under the dictatorship of the proletariat because a bourgeois state should not have that amount of power.
I’m all for rehabilitative justice, but if it can be proven beyond any reasonable doubt that you:
- intentionally murdered an innocent person
- raped someone
- molested a child
- are a nazi
- committed war crimes
then you have forfeited your right to be a part of society and should be removed from it. Imo there is no amount of re-education or rehabilitation that can fix a person who has done any of the aforementioned things.
Thoughts?
Imperfect states in an imperfect world are always going to make mistakes, but if the welfare of the people comes first, accidentally wrongfully executing people is a huge failure. Yeah wrongfully imprisoning someone for decades isn’t really reversible either, but if someone is found to be wrongfully convicted some reparation and restoration is better than none.
My belief has shifted though, from “execution should be prohibited” to “execution should be avoided”. Life and humanity is far too unpredictable.